Ordained Servant Online

A Journal for Church Officers

E-ISSN 1931-7115

Creation Matters

November 2010

From the Editor. Christians, and especially ministers, have often donned lab coats in our culture's debates over evolution and creation, and spoken authoritatively in disciplines about which they know very little, and have no serious training. Non-Christians, especially atheist scientists, have done the same by donning Geneva gowns, as shown by the recent spate of angry, anti-Christian tomes from the new atheists. Old Testament professor Bryan Estelle articulates this distinction to help church officers guide the church in its witness to a culture that embraces philosophical naturalism. Hitching one's wagon to any particular scientific theory may undermine this witness. Professor Estelle also reviews two important books by intelligent design authors.

One of the earliest Americans to produce a virulent attack on historic Christianity was Thomas Paine. The second part of my article on the Huguenots who brought Calvinism to America reflects on Paine's religious book, The Age of Reason. Were he alive today, he might have written the foreword to Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion.

Servant Viewing tackles the movies for the first time in Ordained Servant. The Social Network is noteworthy as a well-crafted film, but more so as a fascinating tale about an important media development.

Finally, don't miss Darryl Hart's review, "Two Kingdoms: A New or Old Idea?" in which he examines an important historical study of natural law's relationship to two kingdom theology by Professor David VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms. Especially significant is the pervasive presence of the doctrines of natural law and two kingdoms among the Post-Reformation theologians.

Ordained Servant exists to help encourage, inform, and equip church officers for faithful, effective, and God glorifying ministry in the visible church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Its primary audience is ministers, elders, and deacons of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, as well as interested officers from other Presbyterian and Reformed churches. Through high quality editorials, articles, and book reviews we endeavor to stimulate clear thinking and the consistent practice of historic Presbyterianism.